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Borno: No Need To Conduct Elections In IDP Camps – Satumari

Hon Kudla Satumari, is a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the candidate for the Southern Borno Senatorial District. In this interview with SUNDAY ISUWA, Kudla said clamour for fresh people into politics is working for his party in Borno State amongst other issues.

You’ve emerged the PDP candidate for the Southern Borno Senatorial District. How can you describe the process that brought you in?

Well, let me first of all thank God for all his guidance and protection through the process that brought me in. But it was apparent that the victory was from what we have put into the process. Because the process began shortly after the 2015 general election.
We began to plan how to reach out to the people. Initially, I was not planning to contest for an election. We only wanted to build the party so that people who have interest can contest.

But because of the passion and commitment, people insisted I must contest for an elective position so that the party can regain it’s lost glory. The investment of time and resources made it easier that a week before the primaries, I was called for a meeting and nine local government chairmen and their delegates met with us in Maiduguri. After that, they called for a press conference and endorsed me as their candidate of the PDP for Southern Borno.

It was the reflection of their endorsement that when I get to the primary election venue, it manifested. I scored 956 votes against eight votes. So, you can see that the endorsement manifested in the outcome of the result. We thank God for going ahead of us and for the favour we received from the delegates and party officials because they kept to their promise.

But winning the main election is a different ball game, wouldn’t you agree?

The yearning for fresh people to take over the mantle of leadership is strong in Borno State. Borno people want people to come with new ideas and new approach to representation. If you sample the opinion of the people you will really know that people want credible change.

They are looking at the credibility of the candidates because imposition of candidates has sown a seed of disagreement and the people want credible leadership. With the kind of people identifying with us, apart from our supporters, we are going to get protest votes in our favour because many people will not do what the government wants them to do. We saw in one or two places where the candidate of choice by the government did not pass through.

I am focusing on my strength and what I will do differently rather than the crisis in the other party. The pognosis on ground will work for the PDP.

The senatorial election will play a very important role if the PDP is to emerge victorious in the 2019 general election. With the other Senatorial candidates that emerged in other districts, do you see this as a good chance for your party winning the governorship?

If you look at the history of my state, you will find out that every eight years, the ground is always watered for PDP to take over. And we have a situation where two senatorial seats out of the three were won by the PDP. Even the incumbent Senator from Southern Borno won his Senate seat when he was in the PDP.

It was in that eight year circle that an incumbent governor lost the senate seat to the PDP. And the circle is here again. People are tired of the kind of governance that we have been subjected to in the last eight years. The kind of insecurity and the level of poverty we are

experiencing is alarming. The government has been unable to manage the resources very well.

So much resources have come into the state. Even the money of local government that could not be accessed before now, the local governments have been recaptured, where are the monies? In all those local governments, there is no commensurate development

compared with the kind of money that were saved. If you go round, for the past seven or eight years, local governments have not had good representation. It has always been

caretaker chairmen. That is not what democracy is all about. Democracy is about taking governance down to the people but in Borno State, in the past years, people were picked to be local government chairmen.

These same people are re-cycled that is why people are yearning for a true change from bad to good. They want fresh people to come with fresh ideas. I think the whole state is ripe for the change and that is why we have been receiving followership from the youths, women and elders.

Some people are alleging that elections would be held at the IDP camps because of insecurity. What is PDP doing about this?

The whole world have been told that the Boko Haram terrorists have been degraded and the majority of the land have been returned to the Nigerian government. Truly, people have returned to their localities with the exception of some few communities.

So, the excuse that elections should hold in IDP camps won’t hold water this time around. Government agencies are making promises and people will hold them to account if their promises of conducting free and fair election is not met.

I think it will be an issue that will not give credibility to the government. We are aware of what happened in Ekiti, we are aware of what happened in Osun. The people are more aware this time around than 2015. If they desire change, they will protect their votes.

But we are also going to embark on aggressive voter education and awareness on how people will protect their votes. Also, people are decamping to our party. They are aware of how they use to rig us out. We also have our counter measures because the people joining the PDP will not allow the APC to rig again. There will be massive votes protection.

If they think they will approach us with insecurity, we have counter measures and everyone is ready for a free, fair and credible election in Borno State. We are mobilising our people and we are seeing the results.

What do you think will work for the PDP in 2019?

What I think will work for the PDP is the successful conduct of the primary election. A situation where 12 people contested and at the end, they all agreed to work for whoever emerged, it’s commendable. The level of impunity that caused a defeat for the PDP is no longer there. If you check, there is a mixture of both the young and women in the PDP now.

We have learned from our mistakes and people have parallel the performance of the APC as against that of the PDP and have come to conclusions that PDP should return to power. So, people are wishing it is PDP that is ruling because of the bad economic situation.

The APC and the governor of Borno State have been saying they have a good candidate. How will you describe the candidate of the PDP, talking about Mohammed Imam?

This is a gentleman that has been a chairman of MMC, that is Maiduguri Metropolitan Council, the biggest local government in the state and the most cosmopolitan area council which brought him to limelight because he runs an all inclusive government. He is completely detribilised, he does not see one as a Christian, Muslim Kanuri or Margi, indigen or settler.

He provided leadership at that time. People saw in him a good leader that carries everybody along. He is former chairman of ANPP who had an understanding of leadership from different aspect as a commissioner. So, he has experience in all faces of governance and politics.

He also has a mind of his own. He served under the former governor and when the former governor came to PDP and left, he refused to follow him. He made up his mind to pursue an agenda and his agenda is not in line with the former boss. Most importantly, he is someone who is passionate about the development of Borno State.

He is someone who is detribilised and open minded. He wants to return Borno to its days of Glory as home of peace.

He has tremendous goodwill even among the members of the APC because a lot of them have worked with him. They know his capacity and by the grace of God, we will galvanize our support and make sure that we form government in 2019.

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